"The only question is," said the old mouse, "who is to bell the cat?"
"An absurd question," said the strategist.
"It has finished the story for hundreds of years," said the old mouse
crossly.
The strategist turned his back on the old mouse. "What is needed," he said,
"is a plan. We must make the cat appear ridiculous, and the people of the
house will see it is no use as a mouser. Then they will turn it into a pet
cat and bell it themselves."
"Shall we send a deputation?" growled the old mouse.
"We must go out and hunt for food in the daytime," said the strategist.
"We shall all be killed," cried the mice, shivering with terror.
"No more than are killed now," said the strategist. "Less, in fact, because
cats do not see so well in the daytime."
And it turned out as the strategist predicted. Mice ran about boldly
everywhere, and though the cat caught some of them the people of the house
were dissatisfied. "We might as well drown that cat at once and get a real
mouser," said the master.
"Oh, don't drown poor pussy," said the little girl. "Do let me keep her."
"Well, mind you put a bell round her neck, then," laughed the master of the
house, "so that she may know that she's not a real mouser."
That night there was joy unheard of among the mice. They scampered about
happily, and ran away chuckling when pussy came tinkling along. The
strategist was crowned king.
Next day the real mouser arrived. His first victim was the strategist.
* * * * *
Illumination.
"In my youth I had learnt, by sedulously imitating the pantaloons in
the harlequinades, to drop flat on my face instinctively, and to
produce the illusion of being picked up neatly by the slack of my
trousers and set on my feet again."--_Mr. Bernard Shaw in "The Daily
Chronicle."_
This revelation of youthful self-culture helps one to understand so much
that Mr. SHAW does to-day.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE SCARECROW.]
* * * * *